Vaporizer said:
You never were that kind of guy who liked sailing in the seas and fish. Instead you idolized the marine who once beated the demons in the phobos and deimos base, and then in earth.

Wait... I thought our Doomguy is the marine who once beat the demons in phobos, deimos, hell and earth?

From MAP01's story.txt The nightmares have begun again. The same night terrors you had during the Phobos and Deimos

invasions. The same dreams that returned with the forces of Hell on the attack on Earth. Claws

scratching out guts, jaws chewing through bone, fireballs burning off flesh. You are more

certain than anything. Hell is back.

Vaporizer said:
But why have demons have built an village like this?

Why indeed?! What would demons want with a fishing village? I find it a little odd that you think a map based on a ship is out of the question but a level in a hell infested fishmongers is feasible :-)

Vaporizer said:
Oh well. Kill first, think later.

Make sure you finish your story when your map is done. Your story needs to end where you map does. As long as you don't mind I'll clean up a few grammar mis-steps from your final story.

Oh, I thought that the marine was a different person than THE doomguy. I rode somewhere that the events of Doom take place in 2000s. Guess thats false info. And Katamori's story said that the year was 21XX. I'll take that part out then.

Cell said:
MAP07 will obviously be bigger than MAP02, as it'll take me - let's see... 3-3,5 days instead of 1,5-2?

You bring up a good point on map size. Usually in a megawad they grow in size as the you get further through the .wad but every slot in this project has a 1 week limit so it's more likely to be the case that we will have a megawad of small to medium sized levels. I would be much more happy with this than have maps unfinished after the 7 day slot.

Very early version of my map. Note the very early. No monsters yet, though I plan to use Revenants and Pain Elementals as new monsters. SLIME09 is a damaging flat. Some places have misaligned textures because I just wanted to quickly finish the layout of the map. Backpack is found inside a secret. No new weapons given. There is some bugs, which I'll repair later.

The placement for the blue keys are temporary. I'll add some village buildings there later. Kinda weird I haven't made them yet, because they're the first areas you have to explore in this level, though I'll map them later. The level ends with Doomguy running uphill. I didn't really make the place where Doomguy runs to very visible so Cell could have some freedom in his map.

This was harder than I thought. Well, I worked on this only at the last three days of this week. I'll make MAP08 less bigger.

I'm gonna get some rest from mapping for a little while now. Hope Cell maps fast again though so I would have more time to map.

Great timing Vaporizer! I planned to start this off today, as my Monday predicts itself to be quite hard (2 possible oral examinations and an English test paper), so, I'll have more free time.
As for the map: don't except ANYTHING amongst the borders of a "classic MAP07" or something! I'm really sick of the concept that players don't ecounter Mancubi and/or Arachnotrons for the rest of the level. I'll use the tags 666 and 667, though, but I won't tell anyone where! :D
As for monsters: "Still not too heavy resistance", ala. the most of 2 Barons appearing on the level and maybe I'll be introducing the Archvile on the very-hardest level. Anything else is only the usual crowd you got to know before.
These things are almost certain for now.

Thanks for the update Vaporizer. I was planning to refrain from downloading until you had a playable version ready but since the project has stalled a bit unfortunately, I couldn't resist having a peek.

I won't make any judgements yet as you say it's an early version, except to say you've certainly still got a lot of work to do. Every area needs work of some sort and you've not even started on the gameplay/thing placement side of things. I really hope you've got a couple of days free to blitz the map as if we start getting late maps it could knacker up the schedule for everyone.

It's worrying that we haven't heard from magicsofa either. Last I saw of his map it was far from finished and it's a week late now.

"Getting through that short mountain cave, you ecounter some black mountains in not-that-vast distances. Your curiosity increases as it appears to be bordered by some metal fences. Following a rocky path, you shortly stand in a yard with two huge greyish-black mountains and a blood fountain. The metal gate closes behind you.

As you're getting closer, the first thing you notice that the bigger mountain is actually a built-in base. Once before, humankid tracked this landscape down and it turned to be a huge locality of precious metal. Time had passed, soon they ran out of gold and platinum, but they still had loads of silver to mine out... then it happened. The invasion reached the base and all of the miners were either killed by devilous hellspawn or buried by collapsing stuff.

You want to show the entire world you're the quality marine. You decide to leave the green, grassy fields of peace and quiet and descend into the mines of despair, pain and suffer to get these suckers eat their own shit because of killing loads of people - again.

But to acces the way down, you must collect all three skulls in the area - the Golden Skull in the middle of a demotic mudpit, the Blood Skull on the top of the gargoyle fountain, and the Skull of the Wisdom, hardly guarded by the hellspawn and placed on the smaller mountain. Aren't you able to do this? Why are you still hesitating and waiting for Deus Ex Machina?"

The first level starts with you being locked up in an asylum. My idea is that as an intro level maybe doomguy could have a crazy dream about hell, which would show hes crazy and that he needs to be locked in an asylum. The level could end with him waking up and thinking it was just a dream...

The first level starts with you being locked up in an asylum. My idea is that as an intro level maybe doomguy could have a crazy dream about hell, which would show hes crazy and that he needs to be locked in an asylum. The level could end with him waking up and thinking it was just a dream...

Anybody like the idea?

love it, it relates directly to the stories of insane rage I sometimes get, so I write stuf as if it would be a book, and yes, Flynn is actually involved.

The first level starts with you being locked up in an asylum. My idea is that as an intro level maybe doomguy could have a crazy dream about hell, which would show hes crazy and that he needs to be locked in an asylum. The level could end with him waking up and thinking it was just a dream...

The Oniria sindrom is not so overused. I know only 3 nightmare WADs - the infamous Nightmares of Loki and the two Onirias. Sounds cool as the very-beginning of our adventures - but how to realise as an "intro level"? o.O

Anyway, I go on with MAP07. I want to finish it by the weekend. And if MAP18 is taken by someone, I'm also up to 19.

Cell, Nightmares of Loki is a different thing than Onirias. Yes I know, it has nightmare feeling, but Oniria and Oniria 2 are more detailed and used some special tricks (black and white effect, scripts, etc.)

The first level starts with you being locked up in an asylum. My idea is that as an intro level maybe doomguy could have a crazy dream about hell, which would show hes crazy and that he needs to be locked in an asylum. The level could end with him waking up and thinking it was just a dream...

Anybody like the idea?

It isn't a bad idea but it would mean shifting everyone's map slot along one. This would cause a problem for Cell as he is currently working on MAP07. If we moved the map slots forward it would become MAP08 and the special tags wouldn't work.

That said, I am becoming increasingly concerned about MAP05 being finished (even MAP06, which is also late). If either magicsofa or Vaporizer are unable to finish these maps it could be a consideration.

Speaking of which, here are a few things that are getting me slightly concerned about the project:

1. Late maps. You have one week or until no later than the last date of the slot you have chosen to produce a map that is approximately 95% complete. The only things unfinished should be things like minor detailing, unaligned textures and gameplay tweaks. If you are late it causes problems for the next due mapper and can put the schedule out of kilt.

2. Non interconnected maps. MAP01 - MAP05 (what I've seen of it) are fine in this regard but Vaporizer said he wouldn't make a map on a ship despite magicsofa planning on ending the previous one there, plus he is ending MAP06 without being able to see where to go next in order to give Cell more freedom with his map. The point of having one mapper starting as the previous one finishes is that the former mapper gives direction and the latter mapper uses their creativity to make their map in the scenario they are given. I may be proven wrong when MAP05, MAP06 and MAP07 are finished but it feels like we could lose the seamlessness between maps that this project was designed for.

3. Story twists. There are too many! It hasn't yet been explained why the the asylum is on an isolated island, a freight ship is making regular deliveries or what is being delivered but now we've added hellish hallucinations, a demon-built fishing village and a silver mine to the story. Each map does not need to be in a completely new area and if a previous mapper has introduced a new element to the story you should first try to develop these elements before introducing your own. Otherwise the story will just be full of unresolved plots and dead ends.

Ah well, rant over. I needed to get that off my chest. Feel free to comment or complain with these points!

purist said:
3. Story twists. There are too many! It hasn't yet been explained why the the asylum is on an isolated island, a freight ship is making regular deliveries or what is being delivered but now we've added hellish hallucinations, a demon-built fishing village and a silver mine to the story. Each map does not need to be in a completely new area and if a previous mapper has introduced a new element to the story you should first try to develop these elements before introducing your own. Otherwise the story will just be full of unresolved plots and dead ends.

I think this is a symptom of the fact that everyone is coming up with their 1-map story with no overall direction. I would hope that towards the end of the project we can start to tie things back in, possibly allowing the player to re-visit areas or at least get some more explanation as to what is going on.

Also, I have no idea why freight ships are coming to the island, I only have that because it was implied in your story. Of course, my map is not finished, so I will have to try and hint at an explanation for the dock.

Speaking of "finishing," I have no update for you. I also don't think you should stress out too much about these deadlines. Granted, I honestly thought I could have my map done on time, but the end-of-semester burnout caught up with me. I'm still going to be swimming in papers at least until tomorrow.

So, I'm sorry that I messed up the schedule...but honestly, I don't see any reason to hold super strictly to these deadlines. As long as you have something for the next mapper to start from, what's the problem?

I understand that you're worried about maps simply never being completed, which would totally suck. However, I know for myself that I will have ample time to work on this. The semester is almost over and then it's vacation time.

[QUOTE]Cell said:
[B]The Oniria sindrom is not so overused. I know only 3 nightmare WADs - the infamous Nightmares of Loki and the two Onirias. Sounds cool as the very-beginning of our adventures - but how to realise as an "intro level"? o.O

Haven't that about that much yet, it was just a little idea I had and decided I'd share it.

Vaporizer said:
I promise that MAP06 will be finished this week. I promise, and I mean it!

Good news. I'm just thinking that you are due to start MAP08 next week and you might struggle with 2 maps at once. Make sure you have smaller plans for MAP08 ;-)

Please also take into account the things I said in my last post about story and contuininity.

magicsofa said:
I think this is a symptom of the fact that everyone is coming up with their 1-map story with no overall direction. I would hope that towards the end of the project we can start to tie things back in, possibly allowing the player to re-visit areas or at least get some more explanation as to what is going on.

I agree, and I think this problem will be compounded should people have to make their map without the previous maps having being completed. I agree that all the loose ends can be tied up later in the megawad but I thought the point was worth making now before even further twists are added.

magicsofa said:
Also, I have no idea why freight ships are coming to the island, I only have that because it was implied in your story. Of course, my map is not finished, so I will have to try and hint at an explanation for the dock.

I did have a rough idea about the freight ship but I thought I'd already imposed enough story on you. I was thinking that the cargo could either be people (for the asylum) or monsters (from the island). My thoughts for the overall story was that the invasion on Earth left some survivors who had come into close contact with demons (Doomguy included) with a psychic link to Spidermasterminds in Hell and that Bamphonets can use these links to spawn demons into Earth's realm. This is why the UAC were keeping Doomguy and others in asylums on isolated islands under heavy medication. Either to prevent Demons being able to spawn or otherwise exploit this link for their own purposes.

magicsofa said:
Speaking of "finishing," I have no update for you. I also don't think you should stress out too much about these deadlines. Granted, I honestly thought I could have my map done on time, but the end-of-semester burnout caught up with me. I'm still going to be swimming in papers at least until tomorrow.

So, I'm sorry that I messed up the schedule...but honestly, I don't see any reason to hold super strictly to these deadlines. As long as you have something for the next mapper to start from, what's the problem?

I understand that you're worried about maps simply never being completed, which would totally suck. However, I know for myself that I will have ample time to work on this. The semester is almost over and then it's vacation time.

I respectfully disagree, I still want all mappers to adhere to their slots as best as possible. A week is long enough to put together a small to medium sized map - some people speedmap in a few hours. Pick a slot you have free time in and if things change prior to your slot swap with someone else. Of course last minute interuptions do occur that you can't account for so there will always be a potential for some delays but as I said further above I honestly think the we will lose the seamlessness and difficulty/monster/weapon/thematic progression that is the USP of the project if the maps aren't completed in sequence.

Please continue with your map whenever you get chance and complete it as soon as you can. It looks like Vaporizer will have finished MAP06 before you finish MAP05 so you should make sure your map links with his as well as my MAP04.

Katamori said:
Cell, Nightmares of Loki is a different thing than Onirias. Yes I know, it has nightmare feeling, but Oniria and Oniria 2 are more detailed and used some special tricks (black and white effect, scripts, etc.)

Realisation is quite different, you're right, but the aim is the same, that's why I've mentioned both in one piece.

BTW, MAP07 is 80% complete. I have to put some health, armor, ammo and decor in, then, there you go with playtesting.
While testing the 667-Arachnotron trigger I've ecountered the problem that the friggin platform rises up to the highest - not lowest - highest ceiling. What I must do for making it rise only 16 mapunits?

When the last Arachnotron dies, any sectors tagged with the number 667 are raised up by the height of the first sidedef's lower texture. If the first sidedef does not have a lower texture, the second sidedef is used.

Therefore your answer is to use 16 pixel-high lower texture on the sector's first sidedef. In theory anyway, I've only used the tag once before so I've not extensively tested it.

EDIT: I notice that earlier you mention taking MAP19. Do you mean you'll take it after someone picks MAP18?

I guess I'll jump on the MAP18 slot... It's far off, I don't know how busy school will be then. However, I do stock-texture maps quicker than I do maps with a bunch of custom stuff. Sign me up.

ALSO: Might I suggest formatting the .txt so people don't have to constantly scroll right to read the story? Can't speak for everyone else, but scrolling left-to-right, for whatever reason, get annoying after a while.

Good to have you onboard Snakes. I know Cell wanted MAP19 so I've added him to the schedule and I've given myself MAP20 so that's the first 3 'episodes' of Doom 2 filled. The latest slots look like this: